1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to devices or apparatus for filtering and cooling smoke. In particular, it relates to a filtering apparatus that can be mounted on various water-cooled pipes thus providing a more pleasing and healthier experience for a smoker.
2. Description of Prior Art
For many years the dangers of smoking have been acknowledged. Smoking causes emphysema, bronchitis, and heart disease. Despite many differences between the substances that people smoke, one thing they all have in common is tar. Tar is the black sludge in smoke that, when deposited in the lungs, causes damage to the lung cavities, narrowing the airways, stimulating the production of excess mucous, and destroying microscopic hairs that keep harmful airborne materials out of the lungs.
By cooling and filtering smoke from burning leaves (tobacco, herbs, etc.) before inhalation, various smoking devices have utilized water as a cooling and filtering medium. For several hundreds of years waterpipes, also known as hookahs, bongs, and bubblers, have been used to smoke various kinds of leaves. The purpose of a waterpipe is to cause the smoke to travel or bubble through water, thereby cooling, purifying, and reducing the harshness of the smoke, thus making it less irritating to the smoker. Generally, using a smoking apparatus that is equipped with a water chamber has always been considered one of the safest and best ways to cleanse smoke of impurities.
Material that is smoked with an apparatus hereinafter will be referred to as a "smokeable substance". This may comprise tobacco, corn, silk, medicinal herbs such as marijuana or anything that may be burned and inhaled into just the mouth. A smokeable substance can provide a variety of tastes and aromas. Any smoking apparatus that has a cylindrical chamber for filtering smoke through water hereinafter is referred to as a waterpipe.
Many waterpipe users smoke therapeutic substances such as marijuana for medicinal purposes. Since many waterpipe users suffer from illnesses and conditions that have compromised their immune systems, they can be at a greater risk for contracting serious respiratory ailments. Some use a waterpipe to insure that the smoke is reasonably cleansed of contaminants that might trigger or aggravate their respiratory condition. When the impurities are removed, smoke is less damaging when inhaled than smoke which is untreated.
During the past 130 years, little progress has been made to develop a practical and widely accepted smoke filtration system that can be used to boost a waterpipes capability. Many prior-art devices have modified waterpipes in an effort to increase their acceptance in the United States or other Western countries. However, most of the modified waterpipes on the market typically have not gained wide acceptance because they fail to provide a practical tar removal device that can be used with the various types of waterpipes currently used. At present, there is no filtration adapter that has the ability to be used with a wide variety of pipe designs, sizes and configurations. The waterpipes currently on the market do not provide users with a device that has an opening where a cartridge containing filtration media may be inserted. Also, for a filter medium to be acceptable in the market, it must be effective at tar removal, convenient, easy to use and inexpensive.
The smoking apparatus currently used provide different methods of filtering the toxins from smoke that is inhaled. For example, Freelain describes "an open top bottle pipe designed to utilize a liquid in a liquid chamber of the bottle to cool smoke". Within the liquid are "pieces", like "gravel, rocks, stones or sand" which have a "density greater than the liquid". These are used in combination with other pieces that "have a density less than the liquid" like "wood or plastic, such as pieces of cork or plastic caps from small non-refillable pens". These pieces which are "present in the smoke chamber" during use are supposed to "create a tortuous path for the smoke to travel through the liquid". The filtration media described in the Freelain patent has an obscure nature and must be assembled and placed into the device by the user. This design is complicated, difficult to use, and has never gained wide acceptance. Another reason may be because the filter medium becomes soiled, and needs to be handled by the user in order for it to be replaced. Additionally, it appears that no post-bubbler filtration occurs outside of the main chamber. All the inadequacies of this device make it unacceptable to those users who are looking for a simple solution to filtering smoke through a liquid. (U.S. Pat. No. 4,682,610 to Freelain, Jul. 28, 1987).
In U.S. Pat. No.4,648,410 Seroussi, Mar. 10, 1987, a smoking apparatus with a "groove means" is described as engaging with a "jar" that has "grooves along its upper rim". Designed to remove "excess moisture" from "cured tobaccos", the filtration medium is described as "absorbent filtrous material such as rolled paper". This apparatus supposedly "permits the user to control and manage the smoking activity, using cured tobaccos which are packaged and readily available in the market place". To use this apparatus, the smoker must acquire and prepare the filter media for use. After the filter medium is gathered, it likely should not be stored where it may be contaminated by moisture, since the stated intention of the device is to collect the moisture present in the smoke. After the filter media is ready, the user must fill the filter element, then seal the element with the cap provided. A "tubular passage in the form of a flexible conduit" needs to be inserted in the cap that encloses the filter element so that the smoker can draw from it. This "flexible conduit can be several feet in length". A small tube attached to the main body of the apparatus supports the filter element, cap and the flexible conduit. Given its small size and yet substantial importance to the overall stability of the device, the weight of the cap and flexible conduit could cause the small tube to fail and the entire apparatus could then topple. Also in respect to the small tube, because of its size and inaccessibility, it is difficult for the user to clean it. Before this device can be operated, the user must first acquire, store and then assemble the filter media. At some point after loading the filter media into the element and operating the device, the user should remove the soiled filter material and dispose of it.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,036,240 Murray, Jul. 19, 1977, describes a replaceable post-bubbler filtering cartridge that is only used with liquid. The "filtering" cartridge is changeable and houses the liquid. However, no post-bubbler filtration device is provided. Because this complicated device can basically only be used to provide liquid filtration and is not adaptable to other smoking apparatus, usage is very limited.
There are many `after-market` filtration systems available to cigarette smokers. Most of which involve a cigarette holder and do not use water. One exception is U.S. Pat. No 5,476,110 to Baig, Dec. 19, 1995, which describes a cigarette holder with a water-chamber but no bubbler. Aside from the water in the chamber and a filter that could be part of a cigarette, it does not appear to have additional filtration provided. One drawback to this device is that all filtration occurs before the smoke is drawn into the water chamber and not after.
The use of ventilated tubes that are filled with silica gel granules to filter nicotine and tar from tobacco smoke in cigarettes has been known for some while. One notable example of a system that uses these granules to filter cigarette smoke has been available for use with a special holder, since the early 1930s, under the trademark DENICOTEA by Alfred Dunhill of London. Silica gel granules have also been used because of their desiccant (moisture absorbing) characteristics. These non-toxic granules are often found in small packets that are provided in packaging for new products, such as leather goods that are sensitive to humid or moist air. However, the level of performance of the DENICOTEA cigarette filter tube is inadequate when the filters are used in the method prescribed by the manufacturer. The filters are primarily only designed for insertion into a specially designed cigarette holder. The package instructions state that the filters should be discarded after "the granules have turned amber or dark". However, when the filters are used with the recommended holder in this way, the amount of tar removed from the smoke is less than substantial. Since tar has a sticky and viscous nature, the simple act of discoloring the granules is little if any proof that a significant reduction of tar has actually taken place. Also, because the filter tubes used with this system are only to be used with a special cigarette holder that lacks both provisions to use it with water or post-bubbler capabilities, there is no easy way for this system to be used with a waterpipe.
Aside from the fact that they all use water, most waterpipes used today have one other thing in common. They have a main smoke passage in the form of a cylinder or tube which serves three purposes; 1) it provides a water chamber to wash the smoke, 2) it provides a smoke holding chamber, and 3) it provides a combination mouthpiece and inhalation conduit for the smoker. The typical size of the cylinder is about 5 cm. in diameter. Ice can be placed in and above the water in the cylinder to cool the smoke as it passes through the water.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,096,868 to Norman, Jun. 27, 1978, discloses putting ice cubes in the main chamber of a waterpipe to cool the smoke. This device may provide a more pleasing smoking experience, but it typically fails to remove impurities after the smoke bubbles through the water and before it is inhaled. Airborne impurities and tar may still be present in the smoke.
Other examples of this type of waterpipe are shown in U.S. Pat No. 4,216,785 to Erickson & Jarvie, Aug. 12, 1980, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,357,948 to Schweitzer, Nov. 9, 1982. Here again, even though both apparatuses utilize the cleaning abilities of water or water and ice together, airborne impurities and tar may still be present in the smoke. All these devices lack a means to filter the smoke, other than water. In addition, sometimes the actual manner of use with this kind of smoking apparatus can be awkward and unsafe. In use, the smoker typically needs to open the mouth wide in order to position it over the end of the smoke passage. Then, while igniting the smokeable substance, draw out the smoke. This approach may require the smoker to directly face the flame when lighting the substance. Erickson & Jarvie illustrates an example of this approach.
In addition to these shortcomings, the devices of the above Freelain and Seroussi patents typically do not enable multiple smokers to have their own mouthpiece for insertion into the pipe. There are people who suffer from various conditions and find that their health can be improved by smoking medicinal herbs. But, since many of these people also have compromised immune systems, they can be at risk for contracting an infection that could come after sharing a waterpipe that may have someone else's microorganisms on the mouthpiece.
In many examples of the waterpipes found, none provide a substantially easy-to-use and effective solution to filtering smoke. Nor do any of the systems available to cigarette smokers provide a system of this type. It appears that all of the attempts at filtering smoke with or without water suffer from at least one of the following disadvantages:
a) They fail to provide a substantial reduction of the impurities present in smoke consumed from a smoking apparatus that uses water. PA0 b) None of the smoking apparatus that use water also have an opening for frictional engagement of a replaceable filter cartridge. PA0 c) In the devices of the above Seroussi and Murray patents, the filters appear complex and would require specially designed pipes. It's difficult to see how they could provide adequate filtration so as to be able to work reliably and effectively. These devices appear deficient, in spite of employing a whole array of very involved, difficult-to-manufacture and assemble parts that are arranged in a very precise and complicated manner. Despite all these complex arrangements, none gained wide acceptance, or seem to be particularly effective at cooling and purifying the smoke for inhalation by a smoker. PA0 d) The systems may be difficult to clean because of their numerous parts and their complex design. PA0 e) None of the patented devices above appear to have any provision for allowing multiple users to share the same inhalation port. PA0 f) If the user of any waterpipe with a tubular smoke passage is in position with mouth open over the tubular passage, it can be uncomfortable and dangerous to face the source of ignition when the waterpipe is being lit. PA0 a) to provide an improvement in filtration apparatus that remove impurities from smoke which is consumed from a waterpipe, PA0 b) to provide a device which, can be used on a smoking apparatus that uses water and has an opening that allows for frictional insertion of a replaceable filter cartridge, PA0 c) to provide a smoking apparatus that incorporates readily available and easily assembled components in a simple design, and that works with a wide majority of smoking apparatus in use today, PA0 d) to provide a system that is both simple and easy to operate and clean, PA0 e) to provide an improvement in a community smoking apparatus, and PA0 f) to provide an improvement in the comfort and safety of operation of a smoking apparatus.
Prior apparatus for filtering smoke with water typically have not provided a simple, convenient, easy-to-change or effective means of filtering smoke. It also seems unlikely that any of these devices could be easily adapted for use with any other smoking apparatus that use water.
It has been said that the smallest particles that are carried in smoke are sometimes not unleashed into smoke until the later stages of burning a smokeable substance. At this stage in the process, smoke can be bitter and harsh. A smoker that prefers to primarily use a conventional pipe (one that does not use water) might also want to see an improvement in their level of satisfaction when they are smoking and reach the later stages of burning a smokeable substance. One way this could be done would be to use a waterpipe that is equipped with a filter adapter as well as the conventional pipe (that does not use water). A smoker subscribing to this belief would typically have the conventional pipe that they prefer to use a majority of the time, and then a waterpipe equipped with a filter adapter. Just before the substance being smoked reaches the point where it begins to get bitter and harsh, the smoker transfers the partially smoked substance from the conventional pipe, to the waterpipe equipped with a filter adapter. In this way the smoker consumes the majority of the substance in the manner preferred. When the supposedly harsh remainder is consumed in a waterpipe that is equipped with a filter adapter, it is less harsh and bitter. In this way, the user smokes the way they are accustomed to, and still is able to see an improvement over using just a standard pipe.
What the market is lacking is a device that can be easily adapted for use with a wide variety of smoking apparatus and one that can utilize a commonly available and replaceable filtration means.